


More Than What You Can Do

by HSavinien



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Gen, Hugs, Post-Canon, Team Feels, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:00:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29542719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HSavinien/pseuds/HSavinien
Summary: Nile's doing all she can.
Relationships: Nile Freeman & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani
Comments: 4
Kudos: 51





	More Than What You Can Do

**Author's Note:**

> “You're more than what you can do for other people.” - Mara, She-ra and the Princesses of Power
> 
> This follows directly from [Deep Freeze](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29517513), but you don't have to read that first.

Joe’s the one who catches her. Nile’s sneaking (stumbling, exhaustion-drunk) back into the safehouse after another week spent with Booker, throwing themselves at a problem that she cares about. Joe, unusually, is reading alone at the kitchen table in a pool of warm light, with a sort of calm content that tells her that Nicky and Andy are fine.

“Nile,” he says, “Welcome back. Do you want anything to eat or drink?”

“Um… Tea?” she says, dropping her bag and kicking her boots off. She pulls off her facemask and drops it in the plastic bin by the door. Joe detours around the sink to let her wash up, pulling out the kettle and tea caddy.

She wipes down the faucet and gets out of his way, tipping over into a chair and dropping her face to the tabletop.

“Long trip,” Joe observes, matter-of-factly. “That was what, fifteen hours’ flight from Texas?”

“Something like that,” she mumbles, face squashed and words smeared across the formica. She must drift off for a minute, because she opens her eyes again at the clunk of a mug in front of her nose. She cups it, absorbing the heat and the smell of chamomile and lemon balm before sitting up and clutching it to her chest. 

“You’re wonderful and I love you,” Nile informs Joe. 

“You’re wonderful and I love you too,” he tells her. “But I am also worried about you.”

“Mmm?” she says into her mug.

“You’re doing so much,” Joe says kindly. “You’re helping many, many people. And that is what we do; we work to make the world better, even in little ways.”

She carried water, she delivered fuel and food, she fixed a broken window, she cleared a walkway of snow and ice.

“Where does the ‘but’ come into this?”

“But you are exhausting yourself. And we can’t fix everything, not even everything that is very important to us. We are only four- five people, if you must count Booker. And there are millions of people hurting.”

Nile can feel her jaw and shoulders tighten. “I could do something, though. Every little bit helps.”

“It does. But you… We do badly by ourselves sometimes, out of compassion for others. You are important. Your wellbeing, your happiness. You are important to me, to all of us.”

“I know.” She does. She’s only been a part of this for a little while, but she knows it like breathing.

“Okay. Then please take a break before haring off again. I know you’ll walk away from it, but trust me when I say that heart attacks really suck.”

That surprises a laugh out of her. “Has this speech ever worked on Andy?”

“Not even slightly, but she isn’t the greatest role model.”

“She taught me how to throw axes last month; she is the  _ best _ role model.”

Joe laughs. “All right, she’s good for some roles.” He holds out an arm and she sets down her mug to get wrapped up in his arms for a hug. “You’re an adult and I’m not the boss of you,” he tells her, “but it would make me happy if you were gentle with yourself sometimes. You are more than what you can do for others.”

“Mmhm,” she concedes, nose buried in his sweater. “Okay, fine. I could use some rest.”


End file.
